Ree Drummond is the Pioneer Woman. Her blog is one of the most popular blogs on the Internet -- ranked in the Top 100 by Technorati -- and gets about 13 million hits a month. The heart of the blog is the Pioneer Woman Cooks, and its popularity led to a new cookbook, due out next month. What follows is a rare look at Drummond at home in her kitchen, and some of her recipes. (Rare because Drummond is almost always the one behind the camera, taking the pictures.)
Writes Drummond in the intro to the recipe: “Which came first? Do cowboys and country kids love ranch dressing because it’s called ‘ranch dressing’? Or did the name arise from the fact that cowboys and country kids love it? This is a question I shall ponder till the end of my days.”
Today, Drummond says she can’t imagine being anyplace other than her ranch in Oklahoma, surrounded by her four children and the Marlboro Man. But that wasn’t always the case. She grew up in Oklahoma, and when it came time for college she headed for Los Angeles and the University of Southern California.
After USC, Drummond headed back home for what was supposed to be a pit stop. She had her sights set on Chicago, and applying to law school. Then she locked eyes across a crowded room with an honest-to-goodness cowboy. The rest is blogging history.
Contest giveaways are a popular highlight of Drummond’s site, and fans might be interested to know that many of those fancy kitchen gadgets are purchased by Drummond herself.
“I give a big chunk of my revenue back in prizes. . . . I wouldn’t have an audience if they weren’t reading my site, and this is my way of showing them how much I appreciate them.”